Timetable with actual down and up

[Peter Fox]

I'm trying to find an image of an old timetable where there's a single list of stations on the left, then 'read down' half and a 'read up' half. Something like the following.
London noon | 4.30pm
Rugby 2pm | 2.30pm
B'ham 3.30pm | 1pm
The stations are immaterial. If it's a coaching timetable that's fine.

The purpose is to illustrate the origins of up and down with a real document.

 

[Taunton]

USA timetables were often like this, and older air timetables as well. The station list is typically in the centre. Down on the left side, up on the right.

http://timetableworld.com/image_viewer.php?id=3&section_id=982

Bears no relation to the railway concept of "Down" and "Up". The major point was at the top of the page.

 

[Peter Fox]

That's an example of what I'm looking for.

Bears no relation to the railway concept of "Down" and "Up". The major point was at the top of the page.

If not then where does Down and Up come from?

 

[pdeaves]

I was always under the impression that up/down started on the LBSCR with the obvious 'going up to London', and then progressively spread to the neighbouring railways around London until, eventually, those north of the city also used 'up to London' but in the 'wrong' (i.e. south) direction. I have never before heard of up and down defined in the context of which way to read a timetable, but it's certainly an interesting thought.

 

[AndrewE]

USA timetables were often like this, and older air timetables as well. The station list is typically in the centre. Down on the left side, up on the right.

http://timetableworld.com/image_viewer.php?id=3&section_id=982

Bears no relation to the railway concept of "Down" and "Up". The major point was at the top of the page.

The Cooks Timetables have a lot like this. Wikipedia has an explanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_directions

Up and down

In British practice, railway directions are usually described as up and down, with up being towards a major location. This convention is applied not only to the trains and the tracks, but also to items of lineside equipment and to areas near a track. Since British trains run on the left, the "up" side of a line is on the left when proceeding in the "up" direction... On most of the network, "up" is the direction towards London. In most of Scotland, with the exception of the West and East Coast Main Lines, "up" is towards Edinburgh...

 

[Taunton]

Up and Down, for going to/from London, even predates the railway. If you read Hughes' classic novel "Tom Brown's Schooldays", which contains an excellent and lengthy description of stagecoach travel to Rugby School in the 1820s, along what is nowadays the A5 from London, he makes reference to Up and Down coaches in exactly the same manner, along with much other argot obviously learned from coachmen of his time, all written before railways came on the scene.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You still get that kind of timetable in some countries. ISTR seeing it in eastern Europe somewhere, possibly Kosovo.

 

[Committee man]

Up and Down, for going to/from London, even predates the railway. If you read Hughes' classic novel "Tom Brown's Schooldays", which contains an excellent and lengthy description of stagecoach travel to Rugby School in the 1820s, along what is nowadays the A5 from London, he makes reference to Up and Down coaches in exactly the same manner, along with much other argot obviously learned from coachmen of his time, all written before railways came on the scene.

I recall reading somewhere that the old stagecoach routes that radiated out from London (and I assume other big cities) were divided in to the 'upper','middle' and 'lower' grounds with the upper sections near to or in London hence wherever you were travelling from, if you were heading to London you were going 'up'.
Not certain if this is true or if I have remembered it right. Willing to be corrected though.

 

[43096]

USA timetables were often like this, and older air timetables as well. The station list is typically in the centre. Down on the left side, up on the right.

http://timetableworld.com/image_viewer.php?id=3&section_id=982

Bears no relation to the railway concept of "Down" and "Up". The major point was at the top of the page.

Amtrak still use this format now for some of their timetables.
https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/.../timetables/Vermonter-Schedule-P55-031018.pdf